When playingBaldur’s Gate 3, I try to talk to every NPC I can, even on playthroughs where I’ve spoken to them before. I tend to forget important information or context about certain areas, characters, or lore, so certain dialogue can remind me of details I may have missed. However, even after playing through each Act multiple times, there are still some dialogue interactions I forget to do.
Some quests have hidden information surrounding them, especially if they are tied to mysteries that you can only solve by talking to the right person. For example, the murder at theWay of the Open Hand Templerequires you to speak with everyone to gather clues regarding another character’s death.Players will oftentimes forget to speak to the most important NPCin that scenario, the one who was slain.
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Deceased Characters Sometimes Have Important Secrets To Tell
One of the most overlooked spells in the game isSpeak with Dead, a Level 3 Necromancy spell that allows you to grant semblances of life into a corpse, allowing it to talk. When you do this,your character may ask a corpse five questionsbefore they rest again. This can include who they were, who killed them, their age, who they worked for, and many more inquiries about their lives.
Speak with Dead inBG3doesn’t always work, as characters who were killed by Acid, Fire, Lightning, Necrotic, or Radiant damage no longer have a mouth to speak with. Since this spell also doesn’t work on undead NPCs, it makes the magic situational and easy to forget.Sometimes, it can be easy to assume a corpse won’t talk, especially if it is an enemy who does not wish to speak with a character that killed them.
Speak with Dead counts as a Ritual spell, meaning it can be cast outside of combat without using up a spell slot. Don’t be afraid to use Speak with Dead if your character has it, but avoid using it in turn-based mode, as this will consume a full Level 3 spell slot.
When there are many corpses after a long-fought battle, it can be easy to forget to cast Speak with Dead on those who’ve been slain. Thenumber of dead bodies you’ll come across in multiple Acts leads to many Speak with Dead opportunities, so it’s natural to miss a few. However, if you fail to speak to the most important slain characters, such as enemy leaders and quest givers, you’ll lose context on so many different situations.
Learn Information Characters Would Not Have Told You While Alive
Many characters you meet inBG3have no intention of telling you their secrets, but their corpses are another story.Since Speak with Dead corpses have to answer your questions, you can gain vital information from them, leading to some interesting revelations. You can learn valuable secrets about a character’s background, clues about areas your party will travel to, or knowledge about future characters you have yet to meet.
One of the memorable examples of Speak with Dead I can recall is when I used the spell on the corpse of True Soul Nere, a drow spellcaster. This follower of the Absolute I met inAct 1 ofBG3was allied with Duergard to enslave Deep Gnomes to dig through the Grymforge for some unspecified reason. After choosing to free the gnomes and kill Nere, I learned that they were in service to Ketheric Thorm.
At the time, I had no idea who Ketheric Thorm was beyond a few mentions of the character here and there. According to Nere through Speak with Dead, Ketheric had ordered him to dig through the Grymforge to open a path to some sort of Temple. Furthermore,I got the name of Ketheric’s Necromancer, someone named Balthazarwho also served as an advisor to the important figure.
While this information didn’t matter in Act 1, it was vital going into Act 2.Without this information, I would not have been able to infer that Ketheric’s invulnerabilty was tied to necromancy, but knowing he had a Necromancer in Balthazar gave me a vital clue. Ketheric’s interest in a temple also alluded to his obsession with Isobel in the Last Light Inn.
Some other great examples of Speak with Dead are on quest giving characters who die, such as Derryth the apothecary and her husband Baelen in Act 1. While Derryth wants you to save her husband, she doesn’t want him to regain his memory. Speaking with Dead on either character reveals Baelen was an abusive husband before, giving valuable context to their odd relationship.
Casting Speak with Dead on companion characters who’ve died also leads to more insight into their personal quests. Nearly every major boss or enemy from fights can be spoken to as well, giving you more clues about future story moments or characters in future Acts.Speak with Dead also gives you a way to learn about characters you’ll never talk to again, giving you clues about their quests or relationships even if they are gone for good.
Entities Speak Through The Bodies Of Former Champions
In some rare cases,Speak with Dead’s best dialogue interactions come from entities that speak through corpsesinstead of the character you instill with life. The greatest example of this is Gortash in Act 3, whose soul has already left his body before you can cast necromancy on it. Instead of talking to Gortash, you speak with Bane, one of the Dead Three gods that Gortash was the champion of.
One of the most disturbing uses of Speak with Dead comes from using it on the entity called Yrgir’s Bed in theGauntlet of Shar area. This"bed"is a collection of fused corpses, who speak in unison and describe scenes of grisly death as they mound of flesh talks together.
Some bodies that you find are characters that you were never going to meet alive, leading to chilling interactions that may not provide information, but add to the atmosphere of locations. Talking to Orin the Red’s dead mother Helena, speaking to the dead child Arabella if you let her get punished by Kagha, and other examples can have Speak with Dead be the only means of interacting with different NPCs.
While a macabre spell, Speak with Dead opens up so many doors in your adventure, giving you interactions you normally wouldn’t have by ignoring dead bodies. While even veterans of multiple playthroughs ofBaldur’s Gate 3like myself forget to use Speak with Dead, you should try using it often to see what hidden dialgoue you can find.
